


the day’s weary edge inverts toward grace

by blackkat



Series: Mace Windu prompts [4]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Control Chips, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protectiveness, Shatterpoints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22178830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Mace makes it to Ryloth in time to save the survivors of Ima-Gun Di's last stand. It's the site of a tragedy, but one that gave Ryloth a chance at victory.Maybe, just maybe, saving a wounded Captain Keeli is the Jedi's chance for victory as well.
Relationships: Keeli/Mace Windu
Series: Mace Windu prompts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941517
Comments: 33
Kudos: 866
Collections: Commander Keeli, Mace Windu Rare Pairs





	the day’s weary edge inverts toward grace

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Can I hope for Mace also fixing the Keeli situation, please save my wonderful son, he deserved so much better!

“It looks like a massacre,” Ponds says, and he’s always steady, but Mace hears the hitch in the words. Sees the hesitation, too, as they slip down the rocky slope. There are bodies all around, and the Force bleeds grief and desperation.

Mace breathes through it, moves with it. He felt Ima-Gun Di’s passing, a ripple like the Force welcoming home one of its own, but the urge to go to the site was too strong to resist. Mace hadn’t even tried; the whole use of the Jedi is that the Force works through them, and plans only trip them up. A Jedi isn’t following the will of the Force until they discard everything and _listen_.

“A last stand,” he says, agreement instead of counter-argument. There’s a clone trooper at his feet, and he pauses, crouching down. Feels it, a moment later, the low and steady pulse of a living being, and breathes out. “Brass,” he says, pitching his voice to carry back to the squad’s medic. “This man is still alive.”

He can sense the relief that ripples out, a sharp spike of emotion from every trooper present. Brass picks up a dead run to get to him, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and almost crashing to his knees beside the trooper, pulling out a scanner. “Sir,” he says, perfunctory, before he goes for his gear, and Mace leaves him to it.

“Fan out,” he orders. “Search for survivors. There are more.”

Ponds is quiet at Mace’s elbow as he makes his way down into the valley, one hand close to his lightsaber. After a moment, the commander glances ahead of them, and asks, “Sir, General Di…”

“Gone,” Mace says evenly. They’ll need a pyre for him. Once a Jedi’s body would have been carried in ceremony back to their home temple, but right now, in the middle of the war, a battlefield pyre is the best Mace can do. He thinks Ima-Gun would understand; freeing the people of Ryloth is more important.

Ponds pauses, and Mace can feel the quicksilver flicker of consternation from him. “If General Di is dead, why commandeer General Skywalker’s stealth ship as soon as it arrived?” he asks.

It’s…difficult, to explain the pull of the Force to anyone who can’t feel it. Mace has tried, before, and never managed to put it into suitable words. Saying _the Force wanted me to_ is sufficient with another Jedi, but—no one else, in Mace’s experience.

“This is important,” he says instead, which is wan and washed-out in comparison to the actuality of the feeling. “Finding the survivors takes precedence over delivering Senator Organa’s supplies. He can wait a few hours. These troopers can’t.”

Ponds’s exhale is loud over the speakers in his helmet. “Thank you, sir,” he says quietly, and veers off towards another fallen trooper. Alive, Mace thinks without looking, and—

Ima-Gun cared about every life under his command. Mace wasn’t in time to save him, but he can at least save the remnants of his squad.

The tracks of too many battle droids are everywhere. Mace closes his eyes, able to feel the echoes of the last stand Ima-Gun and his men put up, the certainty that they were dying to save the Twi’lek people. It has the feel of true righteousness, of selflessness, and Mace lets it slide through him, out into the Force. It hums against his skin, the first crack leading into a shatterpoint, and Mace frowns, faintly unsettled. Something here is important. He’s taught himself to _know_ , over the years, when he’s nearing a shatterpoint’s creation, and like the first signs of an oncoming migraine, he can sense this one. Darkness, heavy with ill intent, but—

Light, beneath it, desperate and burning against the encroaching dark.

Something thumps against Mace’s foot.

It’s familiar, and Mace has to catch his breath for a moment before he leans down to pick up the lightsaber, the yellow on its hilt darkened with dust. Carefully, he brushes the coating of dirt away, then takes three paces forward and leans over the body of his old friend. Ima-Gun is still, empty of the Force, but Mace rolls him over gently, not looking at the wounds in his chest that killed him. Presses the lightsaber into the master’s still-warm hands, and murmurs, “I hope the Force holds you well, Master Di.”

They don’t have time for a pyre yet. Lessu needs to be freed, and the Separatist hold on Ryloth broken. When this invasion is over, when the fragile peace has been returned to the planet, then Mace can mourn the loss of another Jedi. Another friend.

There’s a brush, unexpected, warm. It feels like a hand on his shoulder, pulling his attention away. Mace glances up, but there’s nothing to see, no one close to him. The sensation is familiar, though; Ima-Gun’s presence is almost tangible, the particular welcoming warmth of his being so close that Mace almost expects to see his ghost. He rises to his feet, and the hand tugs him around, urges him forward.

The body of the clone captain who served under Ima-Gun is sprawled there, half-hidden behind the wreck of a commando droid. His helmet is missing, and there are scorch marks on his armor, probably from a thermal detonator. The same blast left a deep wound in his head, too, bloody and stark. The greatest concern is the blaster wound in his side, though, staining the ground beneath him red.

He’s still bleeding, though. Still breathing. Mace raises his head, and just for an instant he can see the cracks in time, can see _through_.

On the battlefield, Ima-Gun turns, surrounded, outnumbered. The blue blade of his ‘saber casts strange shadows across his face and in the blue of his eyes, and just for a moment his gaze locks with Mace’s. There are no words; there isn’t even time for a full sending.

Nevertheless, Ima-Gun thinks _save him_. Ima-Gun thinks _protect him_ and Mace closes his eyes, grief and gratitude like a kick in the ribs.

 _I will_ , he returns, and Ima-Gun’s communicator comes to life with a crackle of sound. Relief flares across his face, and he turns, blocks another blast—

The crack fades, and Mace turns Captain Keeli over, laying a hand above his wound. Healing doesn’t come easily to him; his talents all lie in breaking. But—he tries, and the Force shapes itself to what he wants in a way he’s only felt a handful of times before. Beneath his touch, Keeli jerks, gasps, and the flow of blood stops.

“General Di—” he rasps, and opens his eyes.

“Easy, Captain,” Mace says. “He’s still looking out for you.”

Keeli stares at him for a long, stunned moment before grief twists his features. “General Windu,” he corrects, and it aches like an open wound. “Of course he is, sir.”

“There are survivors,” Mace says gravely. “And the Twi’lek refugees got away safely. The blockade is broken.”

Keeli tips his head back, breathes out. “Good,” he says, and lifts a hand. His fingers curl around Mace’s wrist, tighten like he’s trying to find a way to ground himself. “Good,” he repeats. “We made it, sir.”

“You did,” Mace agrees, and he’s never considered himself a soft man, but—sacrifice should always be honored. The willingness towards sacrifice is a trait the clones and Jedi share. “Well done, Captain.”

Keeli’s smile is bittersweet through the blood. “It was General Di, sir. He got us through.”

“He was a good Jedi,” Mace says, and turns his hand, gripping Keeli’s wrist in return. “And a great man.”

Gloved fingers tighten, just for a moment, and then loosen again. Keeli’s body slackens as unconscious takes him, helped along by a gentle Force suggestion, and Mace breathes out.

The shatterpoint curls around Keeli, impossible to miss with one injured clone at its epicenter. It’s all the thread of the universe, all the connections and ties, and Mace can see how they fit. For one instant, he can see every connection made, the weight of the war trimmed down to knotted strands, and—

Keeli is the one strand that, when tugged, with unravel the whole thing.

“Brass,” Mace calls, and there’s a murmur of voices, then quick steps. A moment later the medic appears around the fallen droid, and immediately makes his way over.

“Another survivor, sir?” he asks, already pulling out his supplies of bacta.

Mace inclines his head. “The wound in his side is closed,” he says. “But the head wound concerns me. A Force healer might be able to see to it, but I don’t have the skill.”

He can’t see Brass’s grimace beneath the helmet, but he can hear it in his voice. “Rightful concern, sir. He needs more medical attention than I can provide down here. We need to get him back to the ship immediately.”

“Are the other wounded ready to be loaded up?” Mace asks, and stands. The tug of the Force hasn’t abated; if anything, it’s gotten stronger, sharper, gained teeth.

“Yes, sir. Ten survivors so far, but we might lose one of them before we make it back.” Brass hesitates, and then says, “Captain Keeli, too.”

Mace doesn’t let emotion sway him, usually, but—the promise to Ima-Gun sits heavy in his chest. “Double-time the loading,” he says. “Leave the dead for now, focus on the living. Commander!” When Ponds hurries over, Mace says, “Get Radar to set down as close to us as possible, and help me get Captain Keeli to the ship. We’re heading back.”

Ponds doesn’t waste time; he activates his communicator, and a moment later the hum of the stealth ship’s engines approaches. In the wash of dust as it settles, Mace waves his men forward, and leaves the dead to the settling darkness. He has a promise to keep, and the living need their care far more.

Sometimes, victory can feel just as exhausting as defeat.

There’s going to be a celebration of Ryloth’s liberation as soon as Senator Taa makes the trip from Coruscant, but for now, there’s nothing but the cleanup to focus on. Mace walks the halls of the _Negotiator_ in the low light of simulated night, so tired it aches but unable to sleep. Ryloth is free, but they lost too many, Twi’lek and clone and Jedi alike.

Not as many as they could have, thankfully. General Syndulla’s assistance allowed them to recapture Lessu, and Mace’s detour to the site of Ima-Gun’s last stand saved the clones who would have died without help. It’s a victory, even if the sight of bombed villages makes it feel like a hollow one.

At the edge of the medbay, Mace pauses. It’s a large space, too bright against the darkness of the ship, and sings with pain in the Force. Places like this are never pleasant for Jedi, especially injured Jedi with their defenses shattered; there’s a reason they all have bad reputations with the clone medics.

Right now, though, Mace isn’t injured, and the weight of pain is a reminder of those who survived. He looks across the occupied beds, letting the sense of healing rise to bury the aftershocks of hurt, and breathes.

“Sir?” Brass asks, pausing by the door. “Are you all right? Were you injured?”

“No,” Mace says, and it’s mostly true. He wrenched a shoulder when the plasma bridge went out, but nothing beyond that. “Razor and Stak reported to you already?”

Brass rolls his eyes. “Under threat of torture, yes. They’re fine. Razor has some bruises and Stak got knocked around by a droid, but that’s all.” He pauses, studying Mace with faintly narrowed eyes, and then says, “They said you threw them to safety on the bridge, sir. Even when you were falling yourself.”

Mace folds his hands into the sleeves of his robe and raises a brow at Brass. “It would have been harder to get the bridge back up without help,” he points out.

Brass grins, like he knows what Mace isn’t saying. “Of course, General. They’re not quite more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Not until Stak tries to sneak that Blurrg he picked up onto the cruiser,” Mace says dryly, and Brass snickers.

“The commander will stop him before he manages it,” he says, with all the confidence of a man who hasn’t seen firsthand how enamored Stak is with the beast. “Ponds is keeping an eye on both of them.”

The problem with Razor and Stak is that there’s two of them, and Ponds only has one set of eyes. Mace snorts, but takes a step into the bay, and asks, “Are things holding steady?”

The humor slides out of Brass’s expression, and he sighs. “So far, yes. Offswitch lost his leg, so I’m having him transferred back to Kamino to be fitted for a prosthesis, and we couldn’t save Lug’s eye. They’ll survive, though. And so will everyone else.”

The relief that settles is a lean, starved thing in the face of the war’s endless stream of losses, but it’s enough. Mace inclines his head, and asks, “General Di’s men?”

“All the survivors made it, sir,” Brass says, and the light that rises in his expression is a fierce, burning one. “They’ll be fine.”

Mace closes his eyes, letting bittersweet relief slip into the surrounding Force. One half of his promise kept, then. “Good,” he says firmly, but when he opens his eyes Brass is watching him with something strange on his face. When Mace arches a brow at him, he grimaces, then tips his head at one of the curtained-off beds at the far end of the bay.

“Can I talk to you for a moment, sir?” he asks.

The shatterpoint that’s been growing since Mace found Ima-Gun Di’s men crystalizes, burning through his mind with such ferocity that Mace almost staggers. He catches himself, one hand on the edge of the door, and waves Brass off when he makes a sound of alarm.

“I think you’d best,” Mace says grimly, and heads for the indicated bed, ducking past the gap in the curtain.

In the bed, Keeli twitches, then immediately struggles to sit up. He looks better, apart from the bandages wrapped around his head and the too-sweet smell of bacta around him, and his movements are sharp when he pulls himself mostly-upright and says, “General!”

“Lie back down,” Mace tells him, raising a brow at him in a look that once made even Obi-Wan Kenobi lie flat in his hospital bed. It apparently works on clones, too, because Keeli slides back down to the mattress automatically, then pauses, like he’s surprised he did.

Behind Mace, Brass snorts, then pulls the curtain shut and activates the privacy barrier. “Captain,” he offers, then looks at Mace. “General, you ordered extra tests on all of General Di’s men, and…I found something on Keeli’s brain scans.” He hands the pad he’s carrying over, and Mace takes it. The image seems normal, and he glances up at Brass, waiting for an explanation.

Brass takes a breath. “Captain, you’ve never had any sort of brain surgery before, right?” he asks.

Keeli frowns, looking from Brass to Mace. “No,” he says. “That would be in my record, wouldn’t it?”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Brass says quietly, and leans over, tapping the screen. It shifts, the next image settling, and Mace pauses. It’s a different angle, and though most of it looks normal, there’s one small spot that looks too pale against the surrounding tissue.

“A chip?” he asks, eyes narrowing, and Keeli’s eyes widen.

“Yes, sir,” Brass says grimly. “Someone put some sort of chip in Captain Keeli’s brain, and from the looks of things, it’s been there a while.”

Mace looks up, and—

The shatterpoint looms, a fracture in the future, tangled threads of coming darkness that all converge at this point. It’s Keeli, Mace realizes with a start. The shatterpoint isn't just growing _around_ the clone; Keeli _is_ the shatterpoint, or the chip he’s carrying is. The darkness he can glimpse along the cracks is overwhelming, _devouring_ , but—

Through some of the cracks, he can see light, too.

The pad creaks in his hands, and Mace breathes out, loosens his grip. He hands it back to Brass, then takes a step forward, up to the side of Keeli’s bed, then raises a hand and asks, “May I, Captain?”

Keeli looks pale. He flicks a glance at Mace, then swallows, nods curtly. “Of course, General. Can you—can you tell what it’s for?”

“That,” Mace says, a little dry, “is not how the Force works.” He glances at Brass, who steps forward and gestures to a point near the back of Keeli’s head. Mace rests his fingertips there, the feel of Keeli’s fear a tight pulse beneath his touch. It’s carefully contained, channeled into determination, and Mace closes his eyes, feeling it like another kick in the chest. This is the man who would have died for Ryloth’s liberation without hesitation, who almost did. He’s anything but a coward, even with his life on the line.

“So you can't tell what it does?” Brass asks, sounding concerned.

“No,” Mace says. But—

There. A faint flicker, so small that he would likely miss it if he didn’t know precisely where to look. Mace can hardly tell the difference between Keeli and the chip, but there’s the faintest touch of something Dark around it. Something sly and vicious and victorious, startling enough that Mace jerks his hand back like he’s been stung.

“Sir?” Brass demands, alarmed, and catches his elbow.

The chip is the shatterpoint. Ever since Geonosis, ever since he let Dooku live in a moment of weakness, Mace has been looking for another with the potential to shift the course of the war, and this—

This could be it.

“I believe,” Mace says evenly, “that it’s some kind of control chip. Organic, and likely implanted during the cloning process. It feels like a Sith touched it.”

Keeli's eyes widen in horror, and he says, sharp, “Can you turn it off? You—General Di said you know how to break things just by looking at them. Can you break the chip?”

Mace pauses, a little startled. “It’s currently embedded in your brain tissue, Captain,” he says, raising a brow at the man.

“Surgery is a better option,” Brass says firmly. “We can get the chip out as soon as you've healed a little more. A med-droid’s going to have a much better chance than a Jedi. No offense, sir.”

“None taken,” Mace says, amused, but—

He pauses, looking at Brass. They found Keeli's chip because of the head injury, but if it was implanted during the cloning process, if it’s really so carefully placed as to be almost undetectable—

“Brass,” he says quietly, and raises a hand.

Brass gets it immediately. He jerks back a step, startled, and stares at Mace for a moment. “You—” he starts, then forces himself to pause. Swallows, deliberate, and says, “General, you think other clones have them too?”

“I think there’s one way to find out,” Mace says, and Brass bites his lip but steps forward, right into Mace's hand. It only takes a moment—recognizing the chip is easy when Mace knows what to look for, when he can feel the convergence of a dozen plots and future plans coming together inside the small chip, ready to drag the future down into darkness. Slowly, carefully, he draws his hand away with a breath, and closes his eyes for a long moment.

“You have one as well,” he says grimly. “I would put odds on every clone having them.”

Keeli and Brass trade looks, both pale, both uncertain. “A control chip,” Keeli echoes, and scrubs a hand over his face. Breathes out, rough and almost angry, and says, “You’re sure they’re…bad?”

“They lead to something terrible in the future,” Mace says quietly, because that much he knows for certain, even if he can't see what it is. He thinks he’d be able to, maybe, but the Darkness that’s been rising for years now makes everything clouded, hard to distinguish.

Keeli drops his hand, lifts his head. He meets Mace's eyes squarely, chin up, shoulders firm, and says, “Then break it, General. If you can't pull it right out of my skull this instant, make sure as hell it can't work the way it’s meant to.”

“Captain,” Mace starts, because he’s sympathetic but he’s also not willing to risk the life of a man just to speed up a process that’s likely simple enough otherwise. Before he can finish, though, Brass catches his arm.

“Sir,” he says quietly. “I think—I think you can break it without hurting anything around it if you just…make it stop. If it’s a control chip, it’s a receiver. So if you just break the mechanism, and stop it from receiving…” He hesitates, then pulls himself up straight. “If you don’t want to try with Captain Keeli's, try with mine. I don’t want it in my head, either.”

Mace pauses, looking between the clones. He can feel their determination, star-bright and steady, and it twinges faintly.

The Jedi aren’t meant to lead armies. They aren’t meant to be soldiers, or order other soldiers to their deaths. Mace has no illusions that using clone armies of thinking, feeling men is wrong, the opposite of everything the Jedi Order stands for. It’s also the only way to stem the tide of the Separatists before they wash over all the inhabited planets between Wild Space and the Core, careless of sentient lives. The Jedi will have to answer for their choices, and Mace has lived every day since Geonosis entirely aware of that.

But it’s one thing to fight with clones, and another to fight with clones who have control chips in their heads, just waiting to activate. Sifo-Dyas had hundreds of thousands of sentient beings created to serve the Republic, which is something no Jedi should have been able to bear. If he actually oversaw the creation of hundred of thousands of sentients who would be turned into mindless slaves with a single order, though, he should be remembered as the greatest evil the galaxy has ever seen.

“Very well,” Mace says, and sits down on the edge of Keeli's bed, reaching up. “You’ll have to stay very still.”

Relief and fear in equal measure whisper around Keeli, but he bends his head into Mace's touch, hold there. “Yes, sir,” he says, and Mace closes his eyes.

Like a crystal, he can see the structure of the future, of the Force itself curled around the chip. And then, within it, a smaller structure—the chip’s composition, instead of the universe’s bending around what the chip will do. Like a crystal, it’s strong, but—

Mace sees the flaws in things and always has. The point where the crystal weakens, where the structure becomes its own fault. The Force is the lever, and Mace touches the weak point in the chip, one precise tap that touches nothing else but _rings_ through the chip’s structure.

Like crystal struck at just the right point, it cracks.

Keeli doesn’t even flinch, just stays where he is until Mace lets him go. Then, carefully, he lifts his head, frowning faintly. “Sir?” he asks, and puts a hand up to touch the point where Mace's fingers just rested.

“I disabled it,” Mace says simply, and waves Brass over. Immediately, the medic leans down, and Mace touches two fingers to the shaved side of his head. A breath, and this time it comes even easier, one touch that cracks it just enough to make the shatterpoint around it fade into nothing but a loose tangle of intent. When Brass rises, Mace asks, “How hard would it be for you to schedule physicals for the whole Corps?”

Brass grimaces. “A headache,” he says. “You want to be present? To break the chips?”

“No paperwork that way,” Mace says. “Putting a whole section of the army down for brain surgery would take some doing, and I think someone would notice.”

“Maybe a little,” Brass says wryly.

“Notice,” Keeli repeats, and frowns at Mace. “You think that if it got out that you know…”

Mace hesitates. He knows his own influence, and his own power, but—

“I think,” he says, precise, “that it’s easier to assassinate one man than scrap a plan to control a whole army.”

Alarm crosses Keeli's face, and he reaches out, grabs Mace's wrist. “ _Sir_ ,” he says. “If that’s—you can't go back to the front, then. If someone realizes—”

“You have to tell Commander Ponds,” Brass agrees immediately. “And we need to figure out a guard—”

Mace doesn’t pull away, but he does raise a brow at both of them. “A rotating guard is about as subtle as scheduling brain surgery for several thousand troopers,” he points out, and snorts at the pair of mulish looks he gets in response. They have a point, though; there’s no saying how information spreads, or where it flows. If the Sith behind all of this realizes what Mace has found out, it won't just be him in the line of fire. Keeli and Brass, and potentially every other trooper who has come into contact with Mace, will be at risk as well.

Before he can diffuse the situation, though, Brass’s pad beeps, and he frowns, checking it. “Ponds is looking for you, General,” he says, and pauses. “Should I start working on those physicals?”

“Schedule a time and let me know,” Mace confirms, and waits until he’s lowered the privacy shield before he ducks out. Brass follows, but Mace keeps his attention on Ponds by the door, looking tired. Takes two steps in that direction—

“ _Captain_!” Brass squawks, the sound of a deeply and professionally offended medic. “Get back in bed, you're not cleared yet—”

“I’m fine,” Keeli says, and when Mace turns to level an unimpressed look at him, he squares his shoulders. The stubbornness on his face is bone-deep, and Mace can feel that he won't waver. “Sir, court-martial me if you have to, but I'm coming with you. I—” He falters for a brief moment, then grimaces and looks up, meeting Mace's eyes. “I couldn’t save General Di. I'm not going to lie on my ass in bed while another general of mine is in danger.”

“You could always turn over and lie on your front,” Mace points out blandly, but he can already tell it’s not going to be any sort of deterrent. Thinks, again, of Ima-Gun and his promise, made through time. He’ll never be sure if Ima-Gun heard it, but—that has no bearing on Mace keeping it.

“I'm not finished yet, sir,” Keeli says, and the words have weight, an echo. Mace isn't the only one they're meant for. “I'm not finished, and I'm not going to give up. You—” He hesitates, closes his eyes for a moment, and breathes. Opens them again, and says, “Sir, General Di counted you as a friend. Aside from everything else, aside from what you’ve done and the fact that you saved me and ten of my men, I would take this duty just for that.”

Mace regards him for a long minute, then inclines his head. “Ima-Gun Di cared deeply for you,” he says, and Keeli swallows hard. “He asked me to save you.”

“For him, then,” Keeli says, a challenge, and steps closer. “For my brothers, and for the Jedi, but—for General Di, too.”

The pyre is going to be the night after the celebration on Ryloth. General Syndulla asked it of him, and Mace won't refuse, even though it makes him think of another pyre years ago, another friend put to the flames. Qui-Gon’s loss still aches far too often, and Mace expects Ima-Gun’s will as well.

Mace keeps his promises, though.

“Very well,” he says, and turns, keeps walking.

This time, though, his footsteps have an echo, and Mace keeps his pace slow enough that Keeli won't have to push himself to keep up.

“General,” Ponds says when he’s close enough, and there’s concern in his voice. “Were you injured, sir?”

“No, Commander,” Mace returns. “Just checking on the wounded. What’s happened?”

Ponds grimaces. “I'm sorry, sir, but I need you to tell Stak that he can't take his Blurrg with us. He’s not listening to me, and I feel like the next time I turn around he’s going to sneak it on board.”

Mace snorts, unsurprised. Syndulla is probably egging Stak on, too. “I’ll have a word with him,” he says. “Commander, when you have a moment, see to it that General Di’s men are transferred to my personal squad. And Captain Keeli will be staying with me as a guard and assistant.”

Ponds knows him too well not to be suspicious. His gaze flickers from Keeli to Mace, and he pauses. Mace can feel his wariness, the way he immediately slips to calculation, but all he says is, “Right away, sir. I’ll make the arrangements.”

Keeli's exhale is all relief, and when he straightens it’s with a certainty to the set of his mouth. “Thank you, Commander,” he says. “General.”

Mace nods, then says, “See me in my quarters as soon as you're off duty, Ponds. I have something I want to discuss with you.”

“Sir.” Ponds salutes, then steps back, and Mace keeps moving. The _Negotiator_ isn't his flagship, but it’s familiar enough, and he makes for his quarters. It’s the middle of the night, after all, and if he sleeps or at least mediates, Keeli likely will let himself do the same.

He keeps his pace just slow enough for Keeli to match him. It’s a promise owed to a man he couldn’t save, in a war he failed to stop, but—

It’s for a clone captain who was willing to give his life without hesitation, who would rather die than live with a control chip in his head, ready to activate. It’s for Keeli, too, because he’s under Mace's command, and Mace will save every man he can until this whole, grinding terror of a war is over.


End file.
